The University of Abuja (UNIABUJA) chapter of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), on Friday, protested the part payment of the salaries of its members by the Federal Government.
ASUU has been at loggerheads with the Federal Government since October when the union suspended its eight-month strike in line with an order by the National Industrial Court for the lecturers to return to work.
The Federal Government subsequently paid ASUU members a fraction of their monthly salaries based on a “no work, no pay” policy, leading to protests by the union.
Members of ASUU in UNIABUJA, who boycotted their lecture rooms, occupied the entrance of the school’s Mini Campus with a banner that read “ASUU UNIABUJA Branch Say No to the Casualization of the Lecturers in the Nigerian Universities!”
The university staff was seen chanting solidarity songs and holding up signs that read, among others, “Education Is Life; Fund Our Universities Adequately”, “Lecturers Too Need Earthly Rewards for Teaching All Professionals,” and “No Work, No Pay Is Not Applicable To University Systems.”
Background
The university lecturers embarked on strike action on 14 February 2022, to force the federal government to implement the 2009 agreement it signed with the union.
The strike lasted for over eight months before it was suspended on October 14. However, the federal government insisted that it will not pay the university lecturers for the months they did not work.
The minister of Education told reporters “the strike has been called off and the government has paid them what is due to them. I think that’s the position of the government. It is not going to pay anyone for work not done and they only did and I think that’s the number of days that they were paid.”
Several USUU branches in Nigerian public university has staged a peaceful protest against the move saying the federal government’s action is an attempt to reduce Nigerian scholars to casual workers.
